Regional publisher Local World oversaw a 94pc increase in web users in its first year of operation, according to figures released by the company today.
The company, founded on 7 January 2013, marked its first anniversary by publishing figures showing a year-on-year increase in unique users for its websites of nearly 7m.
Monthly unique users for the company’s network of websites in December totalled 14,273,396.
This compared with a combined figure of 7,345,334 for December 2012 when the sites were still part of the Northcliffe Media and Iliffe News and Media networks.
A year ago Local World chairman David Montgomery said that demand for local content remained high and that the correct strategic approach could “transform a local media business focused on that opportunity.”
He said today: “In the last 12 months we have proved this. There is a palpable sense of optimism in the business, as we are leading the industry in digital audience growth through our relentless focus on content.
“The figures illustrate the progress we have made in expanding our reader base. We enter our second year with strong momentum.”
He said the company’s focus in 2014 would be on delivering a “fully transformed digital transactional business,” further developing print circulation through product enhancement and relaunches, and reinforcing its position as the “turn-to media” for its local markets.
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“further developing print circulation”.
Let’s wait and see the Local World July to December circulation figures (which apparently are awful) before talking about “development”.
This mad dash for online audience (basically encouraging print readers to access content for free online) comes at a price. To pretend otherwise, and to pretend that circulation sales are still important, is disingenuous at best.
Happy Birthday Local World. I hope there is a plan to replace the lost circulation and print advertising revenue with digital revenue.
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The problem here is that I simply don’t believe this. When i worked in Northcliffe we had hundreds of people commenting on stories … it was relentless. Now, hardly anyone comments. The sites have got progressively worse and they are blighted by enormous adverts. I’ve had web editors tell me they get 1,000,000 unique visitors an month in a city of 350,000 people!!! This is not a word of a lie, but I have hardly heard of anyone in my circle (quite normal) who visits the local site. Remember, this is the same company whose marketing departments used to tell advertisers that on average, 6.5 people read every copy so a circulation of 30,000 meant a ‘readership’ of nearly 200,000!!! No one bought that then.
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MW, I think it’s fairly obvious that there is such a plan, going by the article above. In fact I think it’s pretty obvious that has been precisely their plan from day one.
The question is whether they are going to be able to produce content capable of competing for clicks with that provided by the online news sites which have been in profitable existence for years now. They might be in with a shot at that, in their current state – with the content produced by hundreds of newspaper staff to draw from.But if David Montgomery moves ahead with his apparent, current plan of slashing newspaper staff to the bare bones, will they still be able to compete?
UK online local news is a niche that no one has successfully exploited and I’ve read some convincing arguments that there isn’t the market demand for that to ever happen. People don’t care about reading local news when they can go to cracked.com and read about the 10 Funniest Ways to Kill Yourself – or watch live streaming footage of a terrorist attack in Africa on AlJazeera.com – or so the arguments go. Is that true? Well you’d probably need a crystal ball to know the answer for sure – but Local World alone among UK local news providers seem to be positioning themselves to try and crack it.
Personally I hope the future of online UK local news (if such a thing shall exist) is driven by startup, independent local news providers such as the one in Bristol – the name of which currently eludes me. Hopefully this will bring an element of true localism as well as independent thought and investigation back into local news.
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Ah, but we did all get a free biscuit iced with the ‘LWis1′ hashtag to celebrate the great occasion – no, really. Presumably this is what’ s meant by ‘enabling cookies’, in keeping with our new digital focus, though personally I couldn’t give a fig roll. Ahem.
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It’s true. I’ve seen a plague of selfies of LW journos with said biscuit – presumably hoping gaudy displays of loyalty will save them from the sack when it inevitably comes.
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The explanation for the solipsistic selfie storm is that there is an internal LW competition for the ‘best’ one, with a £100 voucher on offer. So, far from being a crass corporate misjudgement of almost unbelievable pointlessless and ineptitude, it seems the suits see the biscuit business as a motivational masterstroke. Personally, I now look forward to all LW internal communications being comestible. Perhaps they could draw up my P45 on a thin-crust pizza using anchovies.
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These online figures, if entirely true, are certainly impressive, but have they led to a single penny of extra income.
And as MW rightly points out, what is the inevitable cost to the print titles and their journalists once all these ‘unique users’ realise they can get the same news and sport etc entirely free from the various websites.
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As Thomas a Becket indicates, too many people don’t care about local news any more. Those that do can go on to websites. Take all these storms as an example. People in my area go on to the RNLI website to see if the lifeboat was called out. They call the coastguard website up to get weather conditions. They find brilliant photographs, everything.
Who is going to wait a week to read about it in the local weekly newspaper? My local weekly is now so short of journalists they don’t report the “meat” any way. Like that the sea wall has collapsed and we are all in danger of being flooded out.
Cameras are so advanced you don’t need to be a top photographer anymore to get the interest across. A picture of somebody being swept away looks more dramatic if it is grainy and out of focus.
People I know who have gone online for local news usually end up on You Tube looking at Amazing Airplane crashes etc.
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